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Friday, March 9, 2012

Flash! Surprise Provision Buried Deep in Kansas Anti-Abortion Bill

A pair of these could be worth $500 if new bill passes.

A careful examination
of the nation’s most stringent anti-abortion
legislation yet which is hurtling at break-neck speed through the Kansas House of Representatives and
seems destined for the promised signature of Governor Sam Brownback, has turned up a previously unnoticed
provision—a $500 bounty on the ears of abortion providers, medical staff, Planned Parenthood members, pro-choice petition signers, and women
who have abortions or who are overheard asking about them.

The provision at first
escaped notice because it was written in Pig
Latin and invisible ink on the back of a page. No matter, sources close to the Republican legislative leadership say, “The
bill will pass un-amended and in its entirety.”

The Kansas bill has
already attracted national attention and the usual squawks and complaints by
the usual suspects for other controversial provisions. The bill would allow doctors to withhold
medical information about the health of the mother and the fetus if the physician
believed that information might be used to justify an abortion and exempts
doctors from malpractice suits for resulting health problems. Doctors would
also be required to inform patients that abortion may cause breast cancer and
force women to listen to pre-natal heart beats.

The bill also contains
several tax measures aimed at punishing both providers and women who seek
insurance coverage for the procedure or who obtain an abortion. A sales tax of 6.3% would be leveled on all
abortion procedures or prescriptions that can lead to an abortion. No exceptions to tax for victims of rape, to
save the life of the mother, or even to have fetal remains removed after a
miscarriage—which is still defined as abortion under Kansas law—would be
allowed. In addition women would not be
able to claim a medical expense tax deduction for the separate special abortion
coverage required under Kansas law.
Providers would be stripped of a range of tax benefits usually available
to health care providers.

The bill would also put
restriction on teaching how to perform abortion procedures that would probably
lead to the loss of accreditation to the University
of Kansas OB/GYN program.

Despite the outcry over
these and other provisions, even the most knowledgeable pro-choice leaders were
shocked to find the hidden bounty provision.
When asked about the need for secrecy, an aid to the House Federal and State Affairs Committee which
drew up the bill and is holding hearings on it, said under promise of
anonymity, “It’s really for the health of women. Their hearts can’t take the excitement it
might arouse, God bless their hearts.”

Experienced bounty
hunters from as far away as Alaska are
reportedly stocking up on ammunition and preparing to relocate to the Sun Flower State. “This will be twice as easy as shooting
wolves from helicopters and a hell of a lot warmer,” said veteran hunter Orion “Dead-eye” Nimrod.

A spokesman for the Kansas Department of Wildlife, Parks and
Tourism, which regulates hunting and has been charged in the bill with
administering the bounty program said, “We are excited by the possibility of
overseeing the largest cash producing hunt in Kansas history since Buffalo Bill and the hide hunters wiped out the
buffalo. We figure it will take even
less time to eliminate abortionists, their clients, and advocates, three to
five years, max.”

Responding to concerns
that there was no way to be sure that ears submitted to the State for the
bounty were actually taken from intended targets, a spokesperson for the
jubilant Westborough Baptist Church,
a strong supporter of the law, said “You have to break a few eggs to make an omelet. God will forgive the innocent, after we
picket their funeral.”

Law enforcement
officials acknowledge that the system would be challenged to differentiate
between lawful bounty hunting and murder.
“We’ll probably have to take the word of the hunters. And any shooting in the vicinity of an
abortion clinic or women’s organization office, or the home of a registered Democrat will automatically be given a
pass.”

Some Republican leaders privately
expressed concern that a successful bounty program could accelerate already existing
trends of population loss, perhaps eventually endangering one of Kansas’s four Congressional seats. They were relieved when a demographic study privately funded by
the Koch Brothers Foundation predicted
a population loss of no greater than 15-20%with larger families resulting from future restrictions on
contraception making up enough of the loss to prevent the loss of a Republican
seat after the 2020 census and reapportionment.

2 comments:

Leaders of the traditional Republican party are more afraid our domestic Ayatollahs than Iran's. Some of these fly-over states are pathetic. I will/can never set foot in my home state. Some asshole will put a bullet in my mouth as soon as I open it.